Design: Self reported health, minor psychiatric morbidity, physiological measures, and health related behaviours were determined
in 931 women and 2429 men who responded to a question on job insecurity in 1995/96 and again in 1997/99. Self reported health
status, clinical screening measures, and health related behaviours for participants whose job security had changed or who
remained insecure were compared with those whose jobs had remained secure.

Setting: Prospective cohort study, Whitehall II, all participants were white collar office workers in the British Civil Service
on entry to the study.

Main results: Self reported morbidity was higher among participants who lost job security. Among those who gained job security
residual negative effects, particularly in the psychological sphere were observed. Those exposed to chronic job insecurity
had the highest self reported morbidity. Changes in the physiological measures were limited to an increase in blood pressure
among women who lost job security and a decrease in body mass index among women reporting chronic job insecurity. There were
no significant differences between any of the groups for alcohol over the recommended limits or smoking.

Conclusion: Loss of job security has adverse effects on self reported health and minor psychiatric morbidity, which are not
completely reversed by removal of the threat and which tend to increase with chronic exposure to the stressor.

Footnotes

Funding: the Whitehall II study has been supported by grants from the Medical Research Council; British Heart Foundation;
Health and Safety Executive; Department of Health; National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (HL36310), US, NIH: National Institute
on Aging (AG13196), US, NIH; Agency for Health Care Policy Research (HS06516); and the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation
Research Networks on Successful Midlife Development and Socio-economic Status and Health. JF was supported by the Economic
and Social Research Council (L128251046) during the preparation of this paper. MM is supported by an MRC Research Professorship.
MS is supported by the British Heart Foundation.